The feds plan to chase down disgraced bike racer Lance Armstrong for the sponsorship money his team earned from the US Postal Service, a federal government source told The Post today.
The Justice Department will join a whistleblower lawsuit filed by ex-Armstrong teammate Floyd Landis, the source said.
Landis’s suit, filed in 2010, says Armstrong committed fraud against the Postal Service because he raced while using performance-enhancing drugs.
From 1998 to 2006, the Postal Service is believed to have paid around $30 million to back Armstrong’s team.
Armstrong had hoped to settle the case, his lawyer Robert Luskin said.
“Lance and his representatives worked constructively over these last weeks with federal lawyers to resolve this case fairly, but those talks failed because we disagree about whether the Postal Service was damaged,” Luskin said in a statement.
“The Postal Service’s own studies show that the Service benefited tremendously from its sponsorship — benefits totaling more than $100 million,” Luskin said.
Armstrong took six of his seven Tour de France wins while wearing the US Postal logo on his jersey.
He was stripped of all seven titles after a US Anti-Doping Agency investigation decided he had used performance-enhancing drugs. Armstrong admitted his doping in a TV interview with Oprah Winfrey last month.
Landis, who was stripped of his own 2006 Tour de France title also for using drugs, stands to win up to 30 percent of whatever the government recovers in the case.